VFX

This is my project for VFX. To get the footage i went down to the clifftops with my dog Phoebe. For it to work properly the camera had to stay still, so i brought a tripod with me and set it up. I had to get Phoebe running from one side to the other without seeing the original ball being thrown, however it was tricky to get the right distance between her and the camera (there are a few failed footage attempts). The portal that appears, as well as the bursts of flame, are assets that i found on footagecrate.com. I think that this went quite well, vfx isn’t the subject i will specialise in next year but this project was fun to do.

Today I finished the After Effects project that I have been working on. In the animation the character from Journey starts by landing on a statue in the desert (the very first level of the game). It then proceeds to jump and fall through a coloured gradient – representing all of the other levels – before landing on the final colour and knocking over the ‘y’ in ‘Journey’. Originally I was going to include a long ribbon which would light up with the game’s name, however time was short so I just used normal text instead.

I liked making this animation since Journey is an amazing game with beautiful scenery. I had some minor problems with the keyframes glitching out, and the most effective solution was to just delete the faulty ones and start over.

In our After Effects lesson with Pete, we were given a project to do. It is to do another animation – like the Harrison Ford one – in AE. The animation is allowed to be based on any character from a book, film, or videogame. What i decided to do was the character that the player controls in the game Journey.

In the animation the character will jump from a pillar and fall down through a gradient of colours (representing the different levels). Upon landing on the last level the ribbon (that grew during the fall) attached to him will light up and glow with the name of the game – Journey.

Today in our VFX lesson we had a go of adding magic effects to footage. We could choose whatever footage we wanted – the yoda footage, one from the internet, or we could record our own with the green screen.

In the VFX room there is a green screen, so if needed i could film something in front of it.

At the moment i’m thinking i could film my dog Phoebe at the beach, the park, etc. I could add effects when i throw the ball so that it explodes, or i could make Phoebe appear from like a portal or something.

Today in our VFX lesson we learned how to add effects to a person’s face to simulate things like veins and a glow underneath the skin. We used still images for the veins, and we used tracking to keep everything in the same place as the face moves.